Speechless in Sequoia

SA Guide: Lakes Trail - Emerald Lake

You come across words like "idyllic" and "paradise" often when reading descriptions of the unspoiled outdoors. I understand the impulse, but I'm not so sure these are apt, or useful, characterizations.

"Capricious" works, though.

After breakfast on our last day at Emerald Lake I took a few minutes to visit the lakeshore once more before we ventured back down the trail. I sat for a while, waiting patiently for the clouds to clear, hoping to get a shot of daybreak on Alta Peak. While that particular endeavor resulted in a resounding lack of success, it did afford me the time to contemplate the setting. As well, I considered how to think about the setting. It occurred to me that while the lake truly was serene and beautiful, the morning crisply complete; labels like paradise, nirvana and idyllic don't actually do the wilderness any favors.

These words suggest a different reality. There's nothing in "idyll" that bespeaks an earthly connection. Rather there's a sense of disaffiliation, of separation. I mean no diminution of the ecstasy that awaits anyone lucky enough to experience paradise. Hey, who wouldn't want eternal bliss, or even just bottomless frozen yogurt? But the truth is these are concepts that don't really have much to do with the planet on which we live.

The wilderness is present, immanent. Its relevance is played out in every animating waterfall and ruinous avalanche. Behind every green and glorious "yin" lurks a "yang" which is red in tooth and claw. The natural world is a bubbling chaos of risk and reward. And its continuation, as well as ours, depends upon an active, tenable, and unidealized connection between us.

This isn't an emotional, tree-hugging assertion, it's a logical deduction. Humans (at least for the foreseeable future) are dependent upon nature, and nature needs wilderness to remain vital. Ergo, we need wilderness. Absent global-scale technology for creating and maintaining vital biological resources, we are fundamentally reliant on a healthy environment to sustain us.

As Laura and I packed up our gear the clouds, and a faint scent in the air, hinted at a change in the weather. My Spidey-sense warned of rain. Earlier in the morning we'd considered staying another night despite the commitments of home (not to mention our permit for only two nights), but in the end we bowed to responsibility and headed back down the trail. It was the right decision. Things were to become less idyllic.

Before reaching the Watchtower the drops began to fall. They were scattered, and not particularly worrisome. But as they fell on us while we negotiated a rocky part of the trail that hugs a precipitous drop, they also served as a reminder of the material reality of the backcountry - a reality that includes the possibility of plummeting.

The connection can delight, but it can also unnerve. And that's a good thing. It reminds us that we have skin in the game.

Sitting on the ledges next to the Watchtower, looking down on the ant-people at Tokopah Falls far below, feeling a twinge of worry as Laura walked next to the chasm with a potentially balance-shifting pack on her back, I thought about how all of these feelings are part of what I'm looking for when I leave civilization behind. It's nothing so clichéd as a desire to "feel more alive," or to face the fact of my mortality. It's simpler, yet more profound, than that. It's about wanting to experience the wilderness as a dynamic entity, not a scene from a documentary.

Soon we were tracking along damp, gently descending trails through the fir forests of Wolverton Basin, Laura behind me at times, in front of me others. We stopped, we walked...we talked, we were silent. It happens organically. We develop an equilibrium when we hike. It's not always perfect, but here in the non-idyllic real world nothing is. We play off of each other in ways that depend upon deep familiarity, a familiarity required for the maintenance of a successful partnership.

This is how I want to know the wilderness. More than that, it seems to me this is how we, as a species, must endeavor to know the natural world. Like it or not we are partners with the planet, and it behooves us to understand and cultivate that relationship.

From the moment humans acquired the ability to transform our environment on a large scale we tipped an ancient balance. Nature would no longer necessarily persist regardless of our whims. It required us to expand the borders of our conscience to incorporate grander geographic dimensions, and longer time spans. Now a bigger burden weighs down our side of the scales. We have the power to ravage the natural world. And with great power comes great responsibility (yeah, I went there again).

As Laura and I finally dropped packs on the gate of our car, the skies opened up. It, just, poured. We dragged out shells that had been dead weight in our packs and warded off the rain while getting our gear squared away. It felt fortunate in a way - standing in the drench right next to our car after having just been in the backcountry for three days. But it also felt kind of silly.

Capricious still works.

You don't get unpredictability in paradise. On the other hand, you probably don't have to worry about rain-gear, or running out of frozen yogurt.

Info: Lakes Trail (from Emerald Lake): Distance - 5.2 miles, Elevation drop - 2115', Rating - Moderate

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